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I can’t view a video at the moment, so I apologise if this has been answered in that. If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party li

I can’t view a video at the moment, so I apologise if this has been answered in that. If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party library, what is the developer expected to do about that?

boltzmann-brain 2y ago
If the EU decides to build any legislation around SKG, they will give developers ample warning before things go into effect. Apple had years to prepare for USB C. This is still years out. So the answer is: negotiate compatible terms, or don't use the third party library. This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general: you download the game and then you have the game. Since the ask is for a reasonably working game, maybe as a developer in that position you can just cut out the functionality that depends on the library or replace the library with something similar or mock it out or use a static cache of request vs response for all possible requests. The technological possibilities are endless. It's not like as developers we're these helpless infants who have never solved a problem in our lives. It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, that's why you're a professional and not bush league. Ultimately if someone can't figure out how to do their business without scamming people out of ownership then that's a skill issue. If they're not creative enough to figure it out, the business is doomed to begin with. Legislation often has the additional positive effect of ridding the market of people who shouldn't be there to begin with, like food trucks infested with cockroaches and pizza places that use fake cheese.
- maccard 2y ago
  > It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example. Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio. You might be ok with that, but why are your preferences more important than mine. > This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general This is a naive viewpoint IMO. Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform and this will squeeze out the possibility of small developers having multiplayer games. This sort of red-tape stifles innovation.
  - FroshKiller 2y ago
    Small developers have multiplayer games all the time that aren't affected by issues like the ones SKG is concerned with. Ad-hoc multiplayer and dedicated servers that players can self-host are long-established solutions. A common argument in bad faith is that SKG demands perpetual upkeep of presumed infrastructure that will somehow harm small developers, and it just isn't true.
    - boltzmann-brain 2y ago
      To be fair they didn't make that argument, but thanks for the support none the less! Agreed, ad-hoc servers are a staple and a worked out problem. 99% of the time you have to go out of your way as a developer to make things not work in this way.
  - boltzmann-brain 2y ago
    > Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example why are you using Oracle for video games? what's wrong with you? > Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio. Rock Band DOES work offline. Licensed audio in Rock Band is licensed in such a way that once a copy is sold the license allows the use of that copy in perpetuity. 100 years from now I'll still be able to pop in my Rock Band disc and play it, because that's how ownership works and the developer didn't get in the way of my ownership of my own property. But when I said "It's a tech problem" I was answering someone who mentioned a tech problem. Coming up with a different, non-tech problem as a counter-point to a whole discussion exclusively about a tech problem is not as smart as you think it is, and the examples you bring up aren't very good at all. > Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform No, that's unmitigated nonsense. Just your first paragraph showed you have no idea what you're talking about, but now you're just stringing words together. The reason why only the largest companies can have these problems in the first place is because of their legacy technology integrations and pre-existing technology supplier agreements which they would have to re-negotiate. Remember, this is a scenario AFTER the initiative gets a million signatures, which is a year out, and AFTER the EU has legislated, which is another year at least, and AFTER the warning period which is several years. Even with the fastest possible timeline it's probably like 5 years of warning that things are going to change. And at that point anyone entering the space from the bottom as a new player is free to negotiate a deal which conforms with the market regulations going forward; if the technology suppliers don't want to negotiate realistic terms, they go out of business. While we're at it, large companies are also free to renegotiate their contracts to make them legal in the eyes of the legislation because contract survival terms are a standard staple in any technology supply agreement and if changes to market regulations make a contract unfit or illegal then renegotiations commence as a matter of course. But given the timeline of this going into effect they'll have renegotiated YEARS ahead of the deadlines. This isn't a twitter poll. It's not going to go into effect 5 minutes after it's been posted. There will be AMPLE time for everyone to figure stuff out and change their paperwork, and the only companies really affected are the ones that already spend $1M+/year on legal anyways.
- Negitivefrags 2y ago
  What I don’t like about this argument is that this was originally pitched in the initial video as “All you have to do is release the server you already have, you don’t have to do any extra work”. And I took that to mean that you just have to provide the server binaries and no support for them. And fair enough, as a developer of a large online game myself, could get behind that. But the moment this extends to needing to find solutions for people to be able to actually run it, I would withdraw my support.
  - boltzmann-brain 2y ago
    sorry, if you can't sell your game without stealing it back 10 years later then you shouldn't be selling it in the first place

boltzmann-brain 2y ago

If the EU decides to build any legislation around SKG, they will give developers ample warning before things go into effect. Apple had years to prepare for USB C. This is still years out. So the answer is: negotiate compatible terms, or don't use the third party library. This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general: you download the game and then you have the game. Since the ask is for a reasonably working game, maybe as a developer in that position you can just cut out the functionality that depends on the library or replace the library with something similar or mock it out or use a static cache of request vs response for all possible requests. The technological possibilities are endless. It's not like as developers we're these helpless infants who have never solved a problem in our lives. It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, that's why you're a professional and not bush league. Ultimately if someone can't figure out how to do their business without scamming people out of ownership then that's a skill issue. If they're not creative enough to figure it out, the business is doomed to begin with. Legislation often has the additional positive effect of ridding the market of people who shouldn't be there to begin with, like food trucks infested with cockroaches and pizza places that use fake cheese.

maccard 2y ago
> It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example. Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio. You might be ok with that, but why are your preferences more important than mine. > This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general This is a naive viewpoint IMO. Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform and this will squeeze out the possibility of small developers having multiplayer games. This sort of red-tape stifles innovation.
- FroshKiller 2y ago
  Small developers have multiplayer games all the time that aren't affected by issues like the ones SKG is concerned with. Ad-hoc multiplayer and dedicated servers that players can self-host are long-established solutions. A common argument in bad faith is that SKG demands perpetual upkeep of presumed infrastructure that will somehow harm small developers, and it just isn't true.
  - boltzmann-brain 2y ago
    To be fair they didn't make that argument, but thanks for the support none the less! Agreed, ad-hoc servers are a staple and a worked out problem. 99% of the time you have to go out of your way as a developer to make things not work in this way.
- boltzmann-brain 2y ago
  > Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example why are you using Oracle for video games? what's wrong with you? > Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio. Rock Band DOES work offline. Licensed audio in Rock Band is licensed in such a way that once a copy is sold the license allows the use of that copy in perpetuity. 100 years from now I'll still be able to pop in my Rock Band disc and play it, because that's how ownership works and the developer didn't get in the way of my ownership of my own property. But when I said "It's a tech problem" I was answering someone who mentioned a tech problem. Coming up with a different, non-tech problem as a counter-point to a whole discussion exclusively about a tech problem is not as smart as you think it is, and the examples you bring up aren't very good at all. > Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform No, that's unmitigated nonsense. Just your first paragraph showed you have no idea what you're talking about, but now you're just stringing words together. The reason why only the largest companies can have these problems in the first place is because of their legacy technology integrations and pre-existing technology supplier agreements which they would have to re-negotiate. Remember, this is a scenario AFTER the initiative gets a million signatures, which is a year out, and AFTER the EU has legislated, which is another year at least, and AFTER the warning period which is several years. Even with the fastest possible timeline it's probably like 5 years of warning that things are going to change. And at that point anyone entering the space from the bottom as a new player is free to negotiate a deal which conforms with the market regulations going forward; if the technology suppliers don't want to negotiate realistic terms, they go out of business. While we're at it, large companies are also free to renegotiate their contracts to make them legal in the eyes of the legislation because contract survival terms are a standard staple in any technology supply agreement and if changes to market regulations make a contract unfit or illegal then renegotiations commence as a matter of course. But given the timeline of this going into effect they'll have renegotiated YEARS ahead of the deadlines. This isn't a twitter poll. It's not going to go into effect 5 minutes after it's been posted. There will be AMPLE time for everyone to figure stuff out and change their paperwork, and the only companies really affected are the ones that already spend $1M+/year on legal anyways.
Negitivefrags 2y ago
What I don’t like about this argument is that this was originally pitched in the initial video as “All you have to do is release the server you already have, you don’t have to do any extra work”. And I took that to mean that you just have to provide the server binaries and no support for them. And fair enough, as a developer of a large online game myself, could get behind that. But the moment this extends to needing to find solutions for people to be able to actually run it, I would withdraw my support.
- boltzmann-brain 2y ago
  sorry, if you can't sell your game without stealing it back 10 years later then you shouldn't be selling it in the first place